Page 43 of Royally Romanov
And they’d been placed in her care.
Finley couldn’t see Maxim again. She just couldn’t. Not now that she knew about the Century Rule. And not now that she couldn’t seem to be in the same room with him without kissing him silly.
She’d return his photograph by messenger. Going back to his flat would be begging for trouble. She was skating on such thin ice that she scarcely recognized herself anymore. Who was she?
I know exactly who I am. I’m Finley Abbot.
The only stranger in this scenario was Maxim Laurent.
“Gather around, everyone. It’s time for our morning meeting.” Madame Dubois shot a meaningful glance at Finley. “Now that everyone’s here.”
Finley reached for a notepad from her top drawer, and paused when something seemed off. Her drawer wasn’t usually quite this neat. Or empty.
She frowned. What could be missing?
Her heart stopped when she realized that just yesterday, the empty spot in her drawer had been occupied by the photograph she’d borrowed from Maxim. After the research department had spent the afternoon verifying its age, they’d returned it to her in a protective, acid-free white envelope. She’d tucked it away inside her desk so she wouldn’t have to think about what its authenticity could possibly mean. Or how she could possibly prove provenance. Out of sight, out of mind.
And now it was gone.
“Finley, join us please?” Madame Dubois stood at the head of the conference table with her arms crossed and a frown on her face.
Maybe Finley needed to stop worrying so much about Maxim getting her fired since she was so clearly doing a good job of getting herself in trouble all on her own.
“Coming.” She slunk to her place at the table.
She couldn’t believe what was happening. Just when she’d vowed to return the picture, get her act together, and concentrate on her work, things were falling even more spectacularly apart. How had she managed to lose that photograph?
“Now that we’re all here, I want to congratulate one of the members of our staff.” Madame Dubois glanced around the table.
Finley followed her gaze and tried to figure out which of her colleagues had managed to do something fabulous while she’d been busy locking lips with Maxim and misplacing items of potential historical significance.
The handwriting was on the wall. If she didn’t get her head out of the clouds, she could kiss her promotion good-bye. She’d either be a lowly assistant curator for the rest of her life, or she’d have to move back home and get a job stateside.
That couldn’t happen. She didn’t want to go back to Connecticut. Even New York was out of the question. After working at the Louvre, anyplace else in the world would be a demotion.
Breathe. Just breathe.
She’d just published a book. The opening gala for her Romanov exhibit was in less than a week. Everything would go off without a hitch. Just because one of the other assistant curators had managed to do something great didn’t mean she was out of the running.
Yet.
But when Madame Dubois’s gaze came to a rest, she wasn’t looking at one of the other assistants. She was looking right at Finley.
Which should have been a good thing. A wonderful thing, actually. But any sense of elation Finley might have felt was immediately squelched by the sight of the large white envelope in her boss’s hand.
She stared at it in abject horror. She didn’t need X-ray vision to know that the envelope contained Maxim’s photograph.
Mystery solved.
“You were late this morning, so I checked with the research department myself and they informed me your photograph checked out. It’s authentic to the time period.” Madame Dubois smiled.
Finley did her best to smile back.
“I have more good news.” Madame Dubois’s grin widened. During her whole tenure at the Louvre, Finley had never seen her boss look so pleased. It terrified her to her core. “Using facial recognition software, the research department was able to compare this photograph to documented photos of her from Tsar Nicholas’s collection. The image is a match. Finley, you’ve found a lost photograph of the Grand Duchess Anastasia.”
Her colleagues burst into applause. Finley felt sick to her stomach and somehow resisted the urge to slide under the table and hide. Because she knew what was coming next.
Madame Dubois slid the picture from the envelope and placed it in the center of the table. Everyone stared at it, the royal Holy Grail. “Now that this photo has been verified, we need to know exactly where it came from.”
